Grace of a Wolf-Chapter 105: Lyre: Time-Locked

LYRE

The trail’s not cold. It’s frigid. Cryogenically sealed in regret and futility.

I knew this place would be empty before we even turned onto the access road, but thoroughness is one of the many lessons learned over agonizing centuries. It means checking every lead, even the ones that reek of wasted time.

Better to knock out the possibilities now, before they come back to spirit you into another dimension for three weeks, four days, seventeen hours and eleven minutes.

Those are memories I’d rather not revisit. Or experience again.

Jack-Eye gets out first, stretches his long frame like he’s been folded into an origami wolf for too long. The others follow. And me? I’m too irritated to even open the damn door.

I already know what’s inside.

Tapping my fingers against the steering wheel, I stare at the front door, wondering exactly how hard the restrictions would hit if I went on a rampage here.

It’s tempting. Oh, so fucking tempting.

But being without power while trying to chase down the asshole trying to reanimate Isabeau would be a stupid decision, so I have to calm down before I lose my shit.

Deep breath.

Meditation was never my strong suit. Too impulsive, too fiery, too much—the excuses are endless, but it all boils down to the same basic issue. It doesn’t fit with my personality.

Still, I borrow from it a little to cool the rage flowing in my blood.

Deep, deep, deep breath.

Gotta do it in the car, because sucking in a lung full of death and bloody arcana’s only going to raise my blood pressure more.

Finally centered and in control once again, I slip out of the car, pretending like nothing awful’s about to happen.

Jack-Eye edges in front of me, straightening his shoulders as he scents the air.

Well. That’s unexpected.

His wolf might be cowering, but his human half still maintains some functional instincts. Huh. Good to see he’s still functional, even when he’s afraid of my power.

I guess I can see why the annoying King appointed him as beta. He’s an alpha-level Lycan, which means he has the right to challenge Caine for his throne. Instead, he serves with absolute loyalty.

His Royal Dumbass makes good choices. Sometimes.

The magic in my veins prickles harder as I approach the shed. I already knew what I was going to feel, but it’s still strange and wrong to my senses. The rot stench hangs in the air, thick as syrup, but the magical landscape is scrubbed clean. Clinical.

For humans, it’s as if we stumbled onto a loody crime scene wiped free of fingerprints and DNA.

A deliberately manufactured void.

My stomach clenches.

Even Isabeau, that festering parasite, left grime and residue behind. Magical evidence. A mystical fingerprint that could be tracked.

This? This is nothing.

This is Reaper-level sanitization.

Something even Owen, an angel-descendant, can’t quite copy.

As we reach the shed door, I lift my hand, feeling the familiar pattern of a time-anchor spell forming beneath my skin. Arcana flows from my fingers to the air around this place, weaving itself into a large bubble of suspended reality.

My phone dings. Right on cue.

I ignore it. The Divinity Connect app can kiss my ass. I’m not letting these idiots stumble into a Reaper’s path. I’m the one who brought them here; protecting them shouldn’t be a fucking plausibility issue. Of course, basic logic tends to mean nothing to the team of Balance.

"Is it her?" Owen asks, and I can feel the anger simmering beneath his deceptively mild words.

"No. In some ways it’s worse."

The shed door swings open without so much as a creak, of course. They’d never allow something so pedestrian as a creaking hinge.

The time-anchor sets with a soundless snap. To Jack-Eye and the others, nothing has changed. They’re frozen in place, suspended between one second and the next.

For me, the world shifts into a peculiar muted palette of suspended time. Colors fade just slightly. Sound dampens. All momentum bleeds away into perfect stillness, like I’ve closed a snow globe around us and sealed it with a whisper.

A figure steps out, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes.

The Reaper is still irritatingly beautiful—all porcelain skin and eyes like black mirrors, reflecting everything and absorbing nothing. He’s wearing the ridiculous uniform they all insist on: matte-black cloak with shadows that cling too long, too thick. And, naturally, a full-length scythe.

It’s purely ornamental. They don’t need it to reap souls, and they aren’t allowed to harm anything living. I guess they could use it in a battle against divinity, but those are all strictly regulated, thanks the rules of Plausibility and Causality.

"Still using those for balance, I see," I say dryly.

His mouth curves into a smile, but it doesn’t disturb a single muscle in his face. Creepy to humans, normal to those of us who were raised with these assholes. "We were expecting you."

I cross my arms, letting my weight shift to one hip. "Stop playing around. Why are you here so early? There’s a reason, isn’t there? Who’s behind this?"

"You’ve created a thread of deviation." His voice carries the exact same inflection it did three centuries ago, which is none. Monotone bastard. "We aren’t the only ones dispatched to achieve balance."

"Listen. I’ve got better things to do than play cryptic bullshit bingo with you. Burn the shed, raze the evidence, do whatever administrative ass-covering you need to do. But I’m not stopping, and you can’t make me. So either get on board or get out of my way."

He sighs, the sound too perfect to be real. "Do you ever tire of fighting the very system you were born into?"

"Do you ever tire of being a cosmic hall monitor? Get laid. Learn to relax. Maybe try yoga."

A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. "Is that an invitation?"

"I don’t fuck the undead."

He chuckles, taking a step closer, one pale hand reaching toward my face. "That’s not what I recall."

I smack his hand away before he can touch me. "Your flirting has only gotten creepier in the three hundred years since I last saw you."

"I miss you, Lyrielle."

"You’re just a pervert with a fancy job title."

"You rather liked my personality once." His eyes drift to my lips. "Before the last plague."

"You were my rebellious phase, Caeriel. Until I realized you weren’t rebellion. You were bureaucracy with better cheekbones. Pretending to buck the system while bending over for it."

He laughs, the sound too fucking beautiful. Then again, it’s the entire point of a Reaper. Too beautiful to be real. "We’re done here. You can undo your magic." His eyes flash with something way too close to hunger. "I’ll see you next time."

The promise makes my skin crawl. He disappears—along with the presences I’d sensed inside the shed, hiding instead of coming out to face me—leaving behind nothing but a faint scent of lemon.

I drop the time barrier with a sigh, reality snapping back into normal flow.

Jack-Eye and the others immediately tense, sensing the shift but unable to identify what changed. The red-haired wolf lifts his head, nostrils flaring as confusion washes over his face.

"The smell," he says, looking between me and the shed door. "The death stench is just... gone."

"It’s safe to go in." I’m already turning back toward the SUV. There’s no reason to go inside now. "You won’t find anything useful."

Jack-Eye sniffs again, his brow furrowing. "It smells like... lemon furniture polish."

"Yeah," I mutter. "That tracks."